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For years, some of the world's best minds have been rejected at Queen's University because they didn't meet a minimum English language requirement.

No more.

The university is launching a new program to recruit top students from around the world. QBridge is an intensive, 10-week English course that will allow students who do not meet the language requirement to be given conditional acceptance to an undergraduate program pending completion of the language course.

"We first got the idea about three years ago," said Elaine Armstrong, executive director of the Queen's School of English.

"I was travelling and recruiting with undergraduate admission manager Matt Reesor and we were seeing a lot of very qualified academic students (who were) just short of the English requirements."

Three years, numerous discussions and a hefty proposal later, the Queen's senate approved the program for a three-year pilot.

"It really is opening up the opportunity for us to have very qualified academic students who we were missing out on before," she said.

"The University of Toronto has a similar program ... so in the past a student who would be highly qualified academically (but) wouldn't be able to go to Queen's ... would go to the University of Toronto instead."

QBridge fits with principal Daniel Woolf's goal to "internationalize" the university. It also helps that foreign undergraduate arts and science students pay about $12,000 more tuition per year than domestic students.

Although QBridge is new to Queen's, the course content isn't. In fact, the School of English already offers a 12-week English for Academic Purposes program.

What is unique about QBridge is that it allows students to complete secondary school in the spring and then start at Queen's in the fall.

"Our regular program suits the needs for students who have time," Armstrong said. "QBridge is targeting students who are doing their final year of secondary school and want to enter university that fall, the same way a domestic student would."

The problem with the regular program is that it starts in May before the secondary school year is complete and only allows students to apply for undergraduate admission upon completion of the course. This means they need to wait another year to begin their degree.

"The difference with QBridge is that students are offered a conditional admission," she said.

Students do not apply to the QBridge program directly. They must apply for normal admission, but if the registrar notes an exceptionally high-achieving student who doesn't meet the English requirements, that person may be conditionally offered admission as long as he or she completes QBridge.